Hugos 2022: The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

The fourth and final* Galactic Commons novel is set on a space service station, where a group of different travelers find themselves trapped for several days during a disaster. Like most Becky Chambers novels, there's little conflict, and I found this dead boring; of her novels, only A Closed and Common Orbit has really worked for me.

Originally published: 2021
Acquired and read: April 2022

I think the issue, here at least, is that the characters are all the same. Despite being from different species and different societies, they're all well-intentioned people who are vaguely awkward and have some kind of minor secret that sets them apart from their own people. That's all we get out of three hundred pages!

Nothing ever feels like it's at stake. Not externally, but even internally. Am I worried about how these people are and how they might change? Not at all. Chambers has her devoted fans (including my own sister) but she and I are obviously just not on the same wavelength.

* It doesn't really make sense to me that there is a final Galactic Commons novel. There's no ongoing plot; there's no shared characters beyond small cameos. Like Le Guin's Hainish stories, it's a setting, not really a series. So it can't really end. Le Guin never had a "final" Hainish novel, but she did not publish any stories in that milieu between 1975 and 1990. I don't see why Chambers doesn't just write something else; there's no sense of finality here, and might she not return to the setting in 2036?

Review: Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers

Trade paperback, 359 pages
Published 2018
Acquired July 2018
Read August 2018

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers

The first Wayfarers/Galactic Commons novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, didn't do much for me, as it was aimless and conflict-free, but I did end up enjoying the emotional journey of the second, A Closed and Common Orbit, so I picked up the third, Record of a Spaceborn Few. It's a lot like Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140, in that we follow a group of disparate protagonists as a way into seeing a futuristic society. Unlike New York 2140, though, the connections between strands are slight. A couple of the characters briefly meet during the novel, but there's no unifying plot.

It wants to be a book about the conflict between tradition and modernization: in the future, humanity has abandoned Earth for the Exodus Fleet, but once humanity discovers the Galactic Commons, more and more humans are leaving the Fleet for a more grounded life. So what's the point of the Exodus Fleet and Exodan tradition? But this was closer to the Long Way end of the Becky Chambers spectrum. The individual stories mostly left me cold, though every now and again there'd be a striking scene or moment, such as the Exodan funeral ceremony. I just feel like the characters and the themes don't have the depth needed to make Chambers's slice-of-life style storytelling work. Probably this will be my last Galactic Commons novel unless future installments are Hugo finalists again.

Hugos 2017: A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

Trade paperback, 367 pages
Published 2017 (originally 2016)
Acquired May 2017
Read June 2017

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

After largely bouncing off A Long Journey to a Small, Angry Planet, I didn't expect much out of this book, and I spent the beginning of it pretty down on the whole thing. It's less a sequel to the first book than a side story: of the two main characters of this one, one was a main character in Long Journey in a vastly different form, and the other was a character so peripheral I didn't even remember her. But halfway through the book I realized I was starting to become emotionally invested with the journeys of the two main characters, both of whom are outcasts who have to find their place in the world. The horrific but loving journey of Jane/Pepper particularly worked for me, and by the end I knew I had totally bought into the whole thing, because I was getting misty-eyed. So I'm glad I read the sequel despite my original impression of the series, and I guess I'll even be continuing onto book 3 now!

This Friday: I begin tallying up my rankings within each Hugo category, beginning with the short fiction categories!

Next Week: A book I actually know nothing about before reading it, Charlie Jane Anders's All the Birds in the Sky!

Hugos 2017 [Prelude]: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Trade paperback, 404 pages
Published 2015 (originally 2014)
Acquired May 2017
Read June 2017

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

I wanted to love this book. A group of disparate people thrown together in a meandering spaceship journey? Basically my favorite genre! But the way Becky Chambers actually executed this premise left something to be desired. There was just too little conflict-- I'm not saying that everyone needed to be at each others' throats like an episode of The Expanse, but spending a year with your friends in the confines of a spaceship would bring up more interpersonal conflicts than these guys experienced, as anyone who's roomed with and/or worked alongside anyone would know. But the characters here either get along in a completely lovely fashion or are Total Jerks.

I also felt very uncomfortable with the way the majority of the crewmembers impose their moral views on one character and their way of life, in a book that was otherwise about celebrating the joys of multiculturalism and (what I guess you might call) multibiologism. I don't think the book sufficiently made the case that a particular character was being exploited to justify what was done to them against their will.

There's also not enough external conflict. I'm fine with there not being an overarching plot beyond the journey itself (I am, after all, a big fan of the Oz novels), but it felt like too often the Wayfarer arrived somewhere, talked to the people, and just moved on, without any kind of problem to overcome. Really there are only two segments of tension in the whole novel. And I guess this bothers me because it also prevents the characters from popping as much as they could; I want to see more of them struggling, to see what they're like. I did like the milieu and premise Chambers created (particularly her vision of future Human culture, the Exodans), but I'm unconvinced this is the best possible story that could have been told in it. I didn't hate the novel or anything, but I basically finished feeling it was okay, with occasional flashes of interest. I will read the next book because I "have to" for Hugos voting, but I'm not sure I would have bothered otherwise.

In Two Weeks: Another attempt to solve the three-body problem in Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest!